


burnished silver

by amorekay



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Study, Conversations, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Friendship, Gen, Identity Issues, Implied/Reference Childhood Trauma, Other, Post-Timeskip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 18:35:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20698145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorekay/pseuds/amorekay
Summary: Something in his voice sounds so like the Prince Dimitri of Ashe’s academy days, a shining beacon of chivalry and honor, intimidatingly grand above him, that it shames Ashe to realize how far this man in front of him has been knocked from the pedestal he put him on.spoilers up through the end of chapter 18 of the blue lions route.





	burnished silver

**Author's Note:**

> i suppose this is also my version of their a-support conversation, if they had one, honestly! 
> 
> takes place shortly after fhirdiad is retaken.

It seems unfair to base his judgement of a city on the state it’s in so soon after it was on the brink of collapse, but secretly—Ashe is a little disappointed by Fhirdiad. He had grown up so far from the capital and always heard of stories of it, and it loomed so grand in his mind and… it is, it really _is_. But maybe it’s because he’s seen so much since he left for the Academy all those years ago now, that it’s just not quite as spectacular as he had dreamed. 

It’s good to take a breather after so much fighting, regardless, he thinks, leaning up against the battlement and gazing out across the city. 

“Ashe.”

He turns quickly and is surprised to see His Highness with something clutched in his hands— a small papered packet, bizarrely bright and colorful against the dark steel of his armor. He smiles and holds it out, looking carefully earnest. “I remembered, the candymaker's shop near the castle here, these sugar candies—“

Ashe stares in astonishment, and then groans. “Your Hi—um, Your Majesty—” 

“Please, do not call me that yet,” he says, nearly under his breath.

“—You shouldn’t have gone through the trouble! And for me! I—I.” The thought of the newly returned king walking through the streets like a commoner to buy candies, of all things, and for Ashe, of all people! It doesn’t seem right. 

“It’s quite alright, I got some for Annette too,” he replies, something distracted in his tone, and the packet is in Ashe’s hands before he realizes what’s happening. Dimitri continues speaking, looking over Ashe’s head at the city behind him. 

“When I was... lost, these past years, I spent much of my time in the slums of various places in the Kingdom, wasting away in between fighting and tracking my quarry.” He pauses. “I saw many things, none of them pleasant.” 

Ashe looks up at him, and Dimitri continues. “You— ah, you were an orphan before, were you not? I can recall that you had to steal… I imagine, Ashe, that you have seen them too.”

Dimitri’s eye looks at him so intently, almost through him, that Ashe can’t help but call up the smell and sight of the slums in the larger castle town in Gaspard. He remembers, in a careful way he usually keeps tucked away safe, hiding his brother and sister away in a spot too small for the bigger kids to bother with; his sister with a piece of hard tack to suck at, still too young to not cry loud and pitiful at hunger pains. Wrapping his arms around them and kissing their cheeks with a promise that he’d be back, and darting through to the main streets to pickpocket nobles and merchants of their possessions, a skill he was learning quickly, with deadly repercussions for any missteps.

“After my parents died... we were cast out. When I couldn’t find enough work through—through legitimate means,” how humbling, still, to tell of his worst mistakes to the king himself, “we had nowhere else to go. I kept my brother and sister hidden away from most of it … and spent most of my time in busier streets.” 

“But you knew it.” It’s a statement, not a question.

“Yes,” Ashe says softly. 

“Ashe—" he hesitates, and suddenly his voice grows agitated, “How did you—how could you, how is your heart still so _pure_.”

And something in his voice sounds so like the Prince Dimitri of Ashe’s academy days, a shining beacon of chivalry and honor, intimidatingly grand above him, that it shames Ashe to realize how far this man in front of him has been knocked from the pedestal he put him on. Ashe wants to hedge, tell him that he doesn’t know what he means, but—watching him these past months, he can’t ignore that he doesn’t _understand_ the darkness and violence Dimitri seems to hold so deeply within himself. It doesn’t make sense. 

But he can’t just say… _I don’t want to hurt people like you do and I don’t know what makes us different_, can he. “I don’t know.” He settles for, uselessly. The candy package crinkles in his hands as he clutches it tighter.

Dimitri’s eye burns down at him. “It fills me with—with unspeakable things, to think of all those who suffer, who are trampled on by those with no thought for their suffering, who even delight in it. All while I languish, even now, useless and undeserving as their king. Unable to even fulfill my own duties to those who I held dearest, my family, my friends, let alone my duty to Faerghus’ people. I don’t deserve to stand here...”

“But you do,” Ashe cries. “Listen to you! Would a king not filled with love for his people talk like that?” 

Dimitri blinks and Ashe looks down at the packet, this small offering of kindness Dimitri has given him, something he’d even remembered that Ashe would like after all this time. “When Lonato caught me stealing from him and instead of branding me a thief and criminal took me in and raised me as his own, he saved my life and my siblings, and he was just one man. You—you have the power to change so many lives. It’s a precious thing!” 

He feels slightly abashed by his outburst, but he stands by the words all the same. Dimitri looks at him, dumbfounded.

Then he starts to laugh. An honest, open sound tumbling out of him. “Oh, Ashe. You truly haven’t changed, have you? Always so earnest.”

“Y-Your Highness,” he blushes. “I really believe that, though.”

“Hm.” Dimitri looks back at the city, expressions flickering over his face that Ashe can’t quite capture and put into focus. “Perhaps things would have been better if… I had had your fortitude, and your strength of heart. But I am who I am, all the same. I can only hope to make even a drop of difference in the weight of my sins.” 

Ashe hesitates—it seems presumptuous to say. “My dream is to become a great knight, worthy of the title, kind and noble and true. I like to think I’d be able to be exactly that sort of knight under a king like you.”

“Ashe…” Dimitri bows his head, and then straightens himself. “To think I will have those like you in my service, who believe in the things you believe—it is more than I deserve, but it gives me great comfort.”

“I’d like to follow you,” Ashe says. “Through the war, and after it.” 

“I’d welcome you with me.” Dimitri smiles, and tips his head down at him, a little bow. “Thank you, Ashe.”

Soon after, he steps back from the battlement, back from this eagle-eyed view of the city, and fades back to his duties inside the castle. Ashe is left looking at a city less grand than he expected, or maybe he is too weather-worn to appreciate it for its stature, with a packet of sweets from a man they all thought lost. 

For the first time since the war has started, he truly, wholeheartedly has _hope_.

**Author's Note:**

> i just kept thinking about the post-timeskip advice box note of dimitri's where he mentions he lived in the slums for a long time and saw the impact of poverty and war on people there, and it made me think about ashe, who was stealing to survive when he was _nine_.
> 
> i'm at twitter @[amorekays](https://twitter.com/amorekays) and this fic can be retweeted from [here](https://twitter.com/amorekays/status/1174653755817517056)!


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